I fished the Mother's Day caddis hatch on the arkansas river just downstream from Salida on saturday. That was my first experience fishing a blanket hatch. The caddis began to come off around noon and continued to emerge for about 3 hours. They emerged in waves as the sun peeked in and out of the clouds. At times there were so many insects in the air it looked like snow was falling. The egg layers came out of the trees at about 5:00 and danced on the water until dusk. We had an epic day catching and releasing fish, most took a size 14 soft hackle trailing off of either a black foam body or an elk hair caddis. Just as the sun set under the canyon wall fish started rising in a foam line straight across the river from where i was fishing. I shot my line and as soon as the fly hit the water a fish pounced on the dry. I battled the fish across the heavy current to an eddy on my side of the river. After about a minute the fish just gave up and i reeled in and released a very fat 14" brown. I tried to pick up the line and realised it was stuck on the bottom, pulling harder i found another brown chewing on my soft hackle dropper. What a way to end the day. I have fished caddis water back east but never encountered a blanket hatch, do they occur on a regular basis anywhere?

I've never seen caddis back here in the east in the numbers you describe. I did get to fish the mother's day caddis hatch last year on the Green River, we floated the lower part of section C. What a day we had!!!

We fished them with an x-caddis dry. It worked all day. You might try some of those for a different, yet effective pattern.

The only fly hatch (super hatch) I have seen back here in the east is the ephoron leukon, white mayfly, hatch on the Housatonic in August. I have seen it so heavy that I could barely make out the shore line across the river, approximately 100 ft away.

That is the Green River Utah right. I was up there last year for the cicada hatch and it was sick. Big cicadas bumping into you and the water. It was cool. It is strange that there are no prolific hatches like that on the east coast. I would guess it is because the season is longer and there can be more hatches maybe?????

Yes, that is the Green River in Utah. One of the reasons for such prolific hatches on the Green is that it is a tailwater fishery. Therefore, the water temps stay within a much smaller range than most rivers. I believe they try to control this by mixing water from different levels of the res for release. There is also somewhat less divrsity of insect life due to the temps. But, what insects they have, are prolific.

Fish the upper Rogue River 90% of time and it does get 'hatches' frequently. But last week I think I got the idea of what a HATCH really is. MILLIONS UPON MILLIONS of cadis going off at one time; the air was a living, moving wall for 5 days. And fishing was deader than a door nail. Suspect with the pure numbers of muching opportunities a fish actually picking out your fly from the milllllliooons to choose from was a real shot in the dark.
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I would love to see that someday. If you snap a photo I'd love to see it!

Striper fishermen get the same thing with millions of small baitfish and no way to differentiate. Frustrating, but also nice to see nature in such a state of health such that we can't trick hungry predators!

Gad! That was a good suggestion but rarely carry a camera beyond a point/shoot throw-away. Chicken little here has 100% faith in 'taking a bath' if he had his wife's digital around his neck. The Joanster has a great sense of humor but I don't think I'd want to test it with her $1000 toy.
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